Understanding, Assessing, and Teaching Reading: a Diagnostic Approach Ebook

Suggested Citation:"6 The Design of Learning Environments." National Research Council. 2000. How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Feel, and School: Expanded Edition. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9853.

×

half dozen
The Design of Learning Environments

In this chapter we hash out implications of new knowledge near learning for the design of learning environments, specially schools. Learning theory does not provide a unproblematic recipe for designing constructive learning environments; similarly, physics constrains but does not dictate how to build a bridge (e.g., Simon, 1969). However, new developments in the science of learning raise important questions about the design of learning environments—questions that suggest the value of rethinking what is taught, how information technology is taught, and how it is assessed. The focus in this chapter is on general characteristics of learning environments that need to be examined in light of new developments in the science of learning; Chapter 7 provides specific examples of didactics in the areas of mathematics, science, and history—examples that brand the arguments in the nowadays chapter more than concrete.

We begin our word of learning environments by revisiting a point made in Chapter 1—that the learning goals for schools have undergone major changes during the past century. Everyone expects much more from today's schools than was expected 100 years ago. A fundamental tenet of modernistic learning theory is that different kinds of learning goals require different approaches to teaching (Affiliate 3); new goals for education crave changes in opportunities to larn. After discussing changes in goals, nosotros explore the pattern of learning environments from four perspectives that announced to exist particularly important given current information about human learning, namely, the degree to which learning environments are learner centered, knowledge centered, assessment centered, and community centered. After, we define these perspectives and explain how they chronicle to the preceding discussions in Chapters ane–4.

CHANGES IN EDUCATIONAL GOALS

As discussed in Chapter 1, educational goals for the twenty-get-go century are very unlike from the goals of earlier times. This shift is important to go on in mind when because claims that schools are "getting worse." In

Suggested Citation:"half-dozen The Blueprint of Learning Environments." National Enquiry Council. 2000. How People Larn: Brain, Listen, Experience, and Schoolhouse: Expanded Edition. Washington, DC: The National Academies Printing. doi: 10.17226/9853.

×

many cases, schools seem to exist operation equally well as ever, simply the challenges and expectations have changed quite dramatically (east.k., Bruer, 1993; Resnick, 1987).

Consider the goals of schooling in the early on 1800s. Instruction in writing focused on the mechanics of making note as dictated by the teacher, transforming oral messages into written ones. Information technology was not until the mid to late 1800s that writing began to be taught on a mass level in most European countries, and school children began to exist asked to compose their own written texts. Fifty-fifty then, writing pedagogy was largely aimed at giving children the chapters to closely imitate very simple text forms. Information technology was non until the 1930s that the idea emerged of principal school students expressing themselves in writing (Alcorta, 1994; Schneuwly, 1994). As in writing, it was non until relatively recently that assay and estimation of what is read became an expectation of skilled reading by all school children. Overall, the definition of functional literacy changed from existence able to sign i'due south name to word decoding to reading for new data (Resnick and Resnick, 1977); run across Box 6.1.

In the early 1900s, the challenge of providing mass educational activity was seen by many as coordinating to mass production in factories. School administrators were eager to make use of the "scientific" organization of factories to structure efficient classrooms. Children were regarded as raw materials to be efficiently processed by technical workers (the teachers) to reach the finish product (Bennett and LeCompte, 1990; Callahan, 1962; Kliebard, 1975). This approach attempted to sort the raw materials (the children) so that they could exist treated somewhat as an associates line. Teachers were viewed every bit workers whose job was to behave out directives from their superiors—the efficiency experts of schooling (administrators and researchers).

The emulation of factory efficiency fostered the development of standardized tests for measurement of the "product," of clerical piece of work by teachers to keep records of costs and progress (often at the expense of teaching), and of "management" of teaching past central district authorities who had footling noesis of educational practice or philosophy (Callahan, 1962). In short, the factory model affected the blueprint of curriculum, teaching, and assessment in schools.

Today, students need to sympathise the electric current state of their knowledge and to build on it, ameliorate it, and make decisions in the face of uncertainty (Talbert and McLaughlin, 1993). These two notions of noesis were identified by John Dewey (1916) as "records" of previous cultural accomplishments and engagement in active processes as represented by the phrase "to do." For example, doing mathematics involves solving problems, abstracting, inventing, proving (run across, east.k., Romberg, 1983). Doing history involves the construction and evaluation of historical documents (meet, e.g., Wineberg, 1996). Doing science includes such activities as testing theories

Suggested Commendation:"6 The Design of Learning Environments." National Research Council. 2000. How People Learn: Brain, Heed, Experience, and School: Expanded Edition. Washington, DC: The National Academies Printing. doi: 10.17226/9853.

×

BOX six.1 Literacy: Then and At present

Colonists were literate plenty if they could sign their name, or even an Ten, on deeds. When immigrants arrived in large numbers in the 1800s, educators urged schools to deliver "recitation literacy" to the foreign children who filled the schoolrooms. That literacy was the ability to hold a book and reel off memorized portions of bones American texts such as the opening paragraph of the Proclamation of Independence, a function of the Gettysburg address, or some Bryant or Longfellow. With the coming of World War I, and the prospect of big numbers of men treatment new equipment in foreign countries, Army testers redefined reading. All of a sudden, to the dismay of men used to reading familiar passages, passing the army reading test meant existence able to make sense, on the spot, of never-before-seen text. Currently, that kind of "extraction literacy," revolutionary in 1914, looks meager. Finding out who, what, when, where or how only does non yield the inferences, questions, or ideas we at present think of every bit defining full or "college literacy." The thought of a classroom where young women, poor and minority students, and learning disabled students all read (not recite) and write nigh (not re-create) Shakespeare or Steinbeck is a radical and hopeful departure from the long-running formulation of literacy as serviceable skills for the many and generative, reflective reading and writing for the few (Wolf, 1988:1).

through experimentation and observation (e.thou., Lehrer and Schauble, 1996a, b; Linn, 1992, 1994; Schwab, 1978). Guild envisions graduates of school systems who can identify and solve problems and make contributions to society throughout their lifetime—who display the qualities of "adaptive expertise" discussed in Affiliate three. To achieve this vision requires rethinking what is taught, how teachers teach, and how what students learn is assessed.

The remainder of this affiliate is organized around Figure half dozen.i, which illustrates four perspectives on learning environments that seem particularly of import given the principles of learning discussed in before chapters. Although we discuss these perspectives separately, they need to be conceptualized every bit a system of interconnected components that mutually support one another (east.thousand., Brown and Campione, 1996); nosotros first hash out each perspective separately and then describe how they interrelate.

LEARNER-CENTERED ENVIRONMENTS

Nosotros use the term "learner centered" to refer to environments that pay conscientious attending to the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and beliefs that learners bring to the educational setting. This term includes teaching practices that

Suggested Citation:"six The Design of Learning Environments." National Research Council. 2000. How People Larn: Encephalon, Mind, Feel, and School: Expanded Edition. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9853.

×

FIGURE 6.1 Perspectives on learning environments. SOURCE: Bransford et al. (1998).

have been called "culturally responsive," "culturally appropriate," "culturally compatible," and "culturally relevant" (Ladson-Billings, 1995). The term likewise fits the concept of "diagnostic teaching" (Bell et al., 1980): attempting to discover what students remember in relation to the issues on hand, discussing their misconceptions sensitively, and giving them situations to continue thinking about which volition enable them to readjust their ideas (Bong, 1982a:7). Teachers who are learner centered recognize the importance of building on the conceptual and cultural knowledge that students bring with them to the classroom (encounter Chapters iii and four).

Diagnostic teaching provides an example of starting from the construction of a child's knowledge. The information on which to base a diagnosis may be caused through observation, questioning and conversation, and reflection on the products of student activeness. A key strategy is to prompt children to explain and develop their knowledge structures by asking them to brand predictions about diverse situations and explain the reasons for their predictions. By selecting critical tasks that embody known misconceptions, teachers can help students exam their thinking and come across how and why various ideas might need to change (Bell, 1982a, b, 1985; Bong et al., 1986; Bell and Purdy, 1985). The model is one of engaging students in cognitive conflict and and then having discussions about alien viewpoints (see Piaget, 1973; Festinger, 1957). "To promote learning, it is important to focus on controlled changes

Suggested Citation:"half-dozen The Blueprint of Learning Environments." National Research Council. 2000. How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School: Expanded Edition. Washington, DC: The National Academies Printing. doi: 10.17226/9853.

×

of structure in a fixed context…or on deliberate transfer of a structure from one context to another" (Bell, 1985:72; run across Chapter 7).

Learner-centered educational activity also includes a sensitivity to the cultural practices of students and the event of those practices on classroom learning. In a study of the Kamehameha School in Hawaii, teachers were deliberate in learning about students' home and community cultural practices and language utilize and incorporated them in classroom literacy instruction (Au and Jordan, 1981). Afterwards using the native Hawaiian "talk-story" (jointly produced student narratives), shifting the focus of educational activity from decoding to comprehending, and including students' domicile experiences every bit a part of the discussion of reading materials, students demonstrated significant improvement in standardized test performance in reading.

Learner-centered teachers also respect the linguistic communication practices of their students considering they provide a basis for further learning. In scientific discipline, one standard way of talking in both school and professional person scientific discipline is impersonal and expository, without whatsoever reference to personal or social intentions or experiences (Lemke, 1990; Wertsch, 1991). This manner, which predominates in schools, privileges middle-class, mainstream ways of knowing and constitutes a barrier for students from other backgrounds who practice not come up to school already good in "schoolhouse talk" (Heath, 1983). Everyday and scientific discourses need to be coordinated to assist students' scientific understanding.

In science soapbox equally it develops in nigh classrooms, students' talk frequently expresses multiple intentions or voices (see Ballenger, 1997; Bakhtin, 1984; Warren and Rosebery, 1996; Wertsch, 1991). In their narratives and arguments, students express both scientific and social intentions: scientific in that the students present evidence in support of a scientific argument; social in that they besides talk about themselves equally certain types of people (e.g., virtuous, honest, trustworthy). If the responses of other students and the teacher to these multivoiced narratives are always keyed to the scientific betoken, it helps to shape the meaning that is taken from them and relates them dorsum to the context of the unfolding scientific argument (Ballenger, 1997). In standard science lessons, the scientific point in the talk of many students, particularly those whose discourse is non mainstream, is ofttimes missed, and the social intention is often devalued (Lemke, 1990; Michaels and Bruce, 1989; Wertsch, 1991; see Chapter 7).

In some other example of connecting everyday talk and school talk, African American high schoolhouse students were shown that many of their forms of everyday speech were examples of a very loftier form of literacy that was taught in school, but never earlier connected with their everyday experience (Lee, 1991, 1992). Like Proust who discovered he had been speaking prose all of his life, the students discovered that they were fluent in a set of competencies that were considered academically avant-garde.

Suggested Citation:"6 The Pattern of Learning Environments." National Enquiry Council. 2000. How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Feel, and Schoolhouse: Expanded Edition. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9853.

×

Overall, learner-centered environments include teachers who are aware that learners construct their own meanings, showtime with the beliefs, understandings, and cultural practices they bring to the classroom. If teaching is conceived as constructing a bridge betwixt the field of study affair and the student, learner-centered teachers proceed a abiding eye on both ends of the span. The teachers attempt to get a sense of what students know and tin can exercise as well equally their interests and passions—what each student knows, cares about, is able to do, and wants to practice. Accomplished teachers "requite learners reason," by respecting and understanding learners' prior experiences and understandings, bold that these can serve as a foundation on which to build bridges to new understandings (Duckworth, 1987). Affiliate 7 illustrates how these bridges can be congenital.

KNOWLEDGE-CENTERED ENVIRONMENTS

Environments that are solely learner centered would not necessarily help students larn the cognition and skills necessary to function finer in society. Every bit noted in Affiliate 2, the ability of experts to think and solve problems is not simply due to a generic set of "thinking skills" or strategies only, instead, requires well-organized bodies of noesis that support planning and strategic thinking. Knowledge-centered environments accept seriously the demand to help students become knowledgeable (Bruner, 1981) by learning in ways that lead to agreement and subsequent transfer. Current knowledge on learning and transfer (Chapter 3) and development (Chapter 4) provide important guidelines for achieving these goals. Standards in areas such equally mathematics and science help define the cognition and competencies that students need to learn (eastward.yard., American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1989; National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, 1989; National Research Council, 1996).

Knowledge-centered environments intersect with learner-centered environments when pedagogy begins with a concern for students' initial preconceptions almost the subject matter. The story Fish Is Fish (Chapter one) illustrates how people construct new knowledge based on their current knowledge. Without carefully because the knowledge that students' bring to the learning situation, it is difficult to predict what they will sympathize about new information that is presented to them (see Capacity 3 and iv).

Knowledge-centered environments also focus on the kinds of information and activities that help students develop an understanding of disciplines (e.g., Prawat et al., 1992). This focus requires a critical examination of existing curricula. In history, a widely used history text on the American Revolution left out crucial information necessary to understand rather than merely memorize (Beck et al., 1989, 1991). In scientific discipline, existing curricula tend to overemphasize facts and underemphasize "doing scientific discipline" to ex-

Suggested Citation:"6 The Design of Learning Environments." National Inquiry Quango. 2000. How People Learn: Brain, Listen, Experience, and School: Expanded Edition. Washington, DC: The National Academies Printing. doi: 10.17226/9853.

×

plore and exam big ideas (American Clan for the Advancement of Science, 1989; National Enquiry Quango, 1996). Equally noted in Chapter two, the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (Schmidt et al., 1997) characterized American curricula in mathematics and science equally being "a mile wide and an inch deep." (Examples of teaching for depth rather than breadth are illustrated in Chapter vii.)

Equally discussed in the starting time role of this volume, noesis-centered environments too include an accent on sense-making—on helping students become metacognitive by expecting new information to brand sense and request for clarification when information technology doesn't (due east.m., Palincsar and Chocolate-brown, 1984; Schoenfeld, 1983, 1985, 1991). A concern with sense-making raises questions well-nigh many existing curricula. For example, information technology has been argued that many mathematics curricula emphasize

The argument here is non that students should never learn to compute, but that they should as well learn other things well-nigh mathematics, especially the fact that it is possible for them to make sense of mathematics and to call back mathematically (e.g., Cobb et al., 1992).

There are interesting new approaches to the development of curricula that support learning with understanding and encourage sense making. I is "progressive formalization," which begins with the informal ideas that students bring to school and gradually helps them see how these ideas tin be transformed and formalized. Instructional units encourage students to build on their informal ideas in a gradual but structured manner so that they acquire the concepts and procedures of a field of study.

The thought of progressive formalization is exemplified by the algebra strand for middle schoolhouse students using Mathematics in Context (National Center for Inquiry in Mathematical Sciences Pedagogy and Freudenthal Establish, 1997). Information technology begins past having students apply their own words, pictures, or diagrams to describe mathematical situations to organize their own knowledge and work and to explicate their strategies. In after units, students gradually begin to use symbols to describe situations, organize their mathematical work, or express their strategies. At this level, students devise their ain symbols or learn some nonconventional notation. Their representations of problem situations and explanations of their work are a mixture of words and symbols. After, students acquire and use standard conventional algebraic annotation for writing expressions and equations, for manipulating algebraic expressions and solving equations, and for graphing equations. Motility along this continuum is not necessarily smooth, nor all in one direction.

Suggested Citation:"6 The Pattern of Learning Environments." National Research Council. 2000. How People Learn: Brain, Listen, Experience, and Schoolhouse: Expanded Edition. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: x.17226/9853.

×

Although students are actually doing algebra less formally in the earlier grades, they are not forced to generalize their knowledge to a more formal level, nor to operate at a more formal level, before they have had sufficient experience with the underlying concepts. Thus, students may move back and forth among levels of formality depending on the trouble situation or on the mathematics involved.

Fundamental to curriculum frameworks such as "progressive formalization" are questions about what is developmentally appropriate to teach at diverse ages. Such questions represent another case of overlap between learnercentered and knowledge-centered perspectives. Older views that young children are incapable of circuitous reasoning have been replaced by evidence that children are capable of sophisticated levels of thinking and reasoning when they take the knowledge necessary to support these activities (see Chapter 4). An impressive body of enquiry shows the potential do good of early access by students to of import conceptual ideas. In classrooms using a form of "cognitively guided" instruction in geometry, second-grade children's skills for representing and visualizing three-dimensional forms exceeded those of comparison groups of undergraduate students at a leading academy (Lehrer and Chazan, 1998). Young children have besides demonstrated powerful forms of early algebraic generalization (Lehrer and Chazan, 1998). Forms of generalization in scientific discipline, such equally experimentation, can be introduced earlier the secondary school years through a developmental approach to important mathematical and scientific ideas (Schauble et al., 1995; Warren and Rosebery, 1996). Such an approach entails becoming cognizant of the early on origins of students' thinking and then identifying how those ideas can be fostered and elaborated (Brown and Campione, 1994).

Attempts to create environments that are knowledge centered also raise important questions about how to foster an integrated understanding of a discipline. Many models of curriculum design seem to produce noesis and skills that are asunder rather than organized into coherent wholes. The National Research Council (1990:iv) notes that "To the Romans, a curriculum was a rutted course that guided the path of two-wheeled chariots." This rutted path metaphor is an advisable description of the curriculum for many schoolhouse subjects:

An alternative to a "rutted path" curriculum is one of "learning the landscape" (Greeno, 1991). In this metaphor, learning is coordinating to learning

Suggested Citation:"6 The Blueprint of Learning Environments." National Research Quango. 2000. How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Feel, and School: Expanded Edition. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: x.17226/9853.

×

to live in an environment: learning your manner around, learning what resources are bachelor, and learning how to use those resource in conducting your activities productively and enjoyably (Greeno, 1991:175). The progressive formalization framework discussed higher up is consistent with this metaphor. Knowing where one is in a mural requires a network of connections that link one'due south present location to the larger infinite.

Traditional curricula often fail to help students "learn their style around" a discipline. The curricula include the familiar scope and sequence charts that specify procedural objectives to exist mastered past students at each course: though an individual objective might be reasonable, information technology is not seen every bit part of a larger network. Yet it is the network, the connections among objectives, that is important. This is the kind of knowledge that characterizes expertise (see Chapter 2). Stress on isolated parts can train students in a series of routines without educating them to sympathise an overall moving picture that will ensure the development of integrated knowledge structures and data near atmospheric condition of applicability.

An alternative to simply progressing through a series of exercises that derive from a scope and sequence nautical chart is to betrayal students to the major features of a subject domain as they arise naturally in problem situations. Activities can be structured so that students are able to explore, explain, extend, and evaluate their progress. Ideas are all-time introduced when students run across a need or a reason for their use—this helps them see relevant uses of knowledge to brand sense of what they are learning. Trouble situations used to engage students may include the historic reasons for the development of the domain, the relationship of that domain to other domains, or the uses of ideas in that domain (run into Webb and Romberg, 1992). In Chapter 7 nosotros present examples from history, science, and mathematics instruction that emphasize the importance of introducing ideas and concepts in ways that promote deep understanding.

A challenge for the design of knowledge-centered environments is to strike the appropriate balance between activities designed to promote understanding and those designed to promote the automaticity of skills necessary to function effectively without being overwhelmed by attentional requirements. Students for whom it is effortful to read, write, and summate can run across serious difficulties learning. The importance of automaticity has been demonstrated in a number of areas (eastward.g., Brook et al., 1989, 1991; Hasselbring et al., 1987; LaBerge and Samuels, 1974; meet Chapter two).

Cess-CENTERED ENVIRONMENTS

In addition to being learner centered and knowledge centered, effectively designed learning environments must also be assessment centered. The key principles of assessment are that they should provide opportunities

Suggested Citation:"vi The Design of Learning Environments." National Research Council. 2000. How People Learn: Encephalon, Mind, Experience, and School: Expanded Edition. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9853.

×

for feedback and revision and that what is assessed must be congruent with ane'due south learning goals.

It is important to distinguish between ii major uses of cess. The first, determinative assessment, involves the apply of assessments (usually administered in the context of the classroom) as sources of feedback to improve didactics and learning. The second, summative assessment, measures what students have learned at the end of some set of learning activities. Examples of formative assessments include teachers' comments on work in progress, such every bit drafts of papers or preparations for presentations. Examples of summative assessments include teacher-made tests given at the end of a unit of study and state and national achievement tests that students take at the end of a year. Ideally, teachers' formative and summative assessments are aligned with the state and national assessments that students take at the end of the year; often, however, this is not the example. Issues of summative cess for purposes of national, country, and commune accountability are beyond the scope of this volume; our discussion focuses on classroom-based formative and summative assessments.

Formative Assessments and Feedback

Studies of adaptive expertise, learning, transfer, and early on development evidence that feedback is extremely important (encounter Chapters 2, three, and four). Students' thinking must be made visible (through discussions, papers, or tests), and feedback must be provided. Given the goal of learning with understanding, assessments and feedback must focus on understanding, and not only on retentivity for procedures or facts (although these can be valuable, too). Assessments that emphasize understanding do not necessarily require elaborate or complicated assessment procedures. Even multiple-choice tests tin can be organized in means that assess understanding (see below).

Opportunities for feedback should occur continuously, but non intrusively, equally a part of instruction. Effective teachers continually try to learn about their students' thinking and agreement. They do a groovy deal of on-line monitoring of both group work and individual performances, and they endeavour to assess students' abilities to link their current activities to other parts of the curriculum and their lives. The feedback they give to students tin be formal or informal. Effective teachers too help students build skills of cocky-cess. Students learn to assess their own work, every bit well every bit the work of their peers, in order to assistance everyone acquire more finer (meet, e.g., Vye et al., 1998a, b). Such self-cess is an important part of the metacognitive approach to instruction (discussed in Capacity iii, four, and 7).

In many classrooms, opportunities for feedback appear to occur relatively infrequently. Most teacher feedback—grades on tests, papers,

Suggested Citation:"6 The Design of Learning Environments." National Research Council. 2000. How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School: Expanded Edition. Washington, DC: The National Academies Printing. doi: 10.17226/9853.

×

worksheets, homework, and on report cards—represent summative assessments that are intended to measure out the results of learning. Later receiving grades, students typically move on to a new topic and work for another set of grades. Feedback is nearly valuable when students have the opportunity to utilize it to revise their thinking as they are working on a unit of measurement or project. The addition of opportunities for formative assessment increases students' learning and transfer, and they learn to value opportunities to revise (Barron et al., 1998; Black and William, 1998; Vye et al., 1998b). Opportunities to work collaboratively in groups tin also increase the quality of the feedback bachelor to students (Barron, 1991; Bereiter and Scardamalia, 1989; Fuchs et al., 1992; Johnson and Johnson, 1975; Slavin, 1987; Vye et al., 1998a), although many students must be helped to learn how to piece of work collaboratively. New technologies provide opportunities to increase feedback by allowing students, teachers, and content experts to interact both synchronously and asynchronously (meet Chapter ix).

A claiming of implementing good cess practices involves the need to modify many teachers', parents', and students' models of what effective learning looks like. Many assessments developed past teachers overly emphasize memory for procedures and facts (Porter et al., 1993). In addition, many standardized tests that are used for accountability notwithstanding overemphasize memory for isolated facts and procedures, yet teachers are often judged by how well their students exercise on such tests. One mathematics teacher consistently produced students who scored high on statewide examinations by helping students memorize a number of mathematical procedures (due east.g., proofs) that typically appeared on the examinations, only the students did not really understand what they were doing, and often could not reply questions that required an understanding of mathematics (Schoenfeld, 1988).

Appropriately designed assessments tin help teachers realize the demand to rethink their teaching practices. Many physics teachers take been surprised at their students' inabilities to answer seemingly obvious (to the skillful) questions that assessed their students' agreement, and this outcome has motivated them to revise their instructional practices (Redish, 1996). Similarly, visually based assessments of "number sense" (see Case and Moss, 1996) have helped teachers notice the need to aid their students develop important aspects of mathematical understanding (Bransford et al., 1998). Innovative assessments that reveal students' understanding of important concepts in science and mathematics have as well been developed (Lehrer and Schauble, 1996a, b).

Suggested Commendation:"6 The Design of Learning Environments." National Enquiry Quango. 2000. How People Larn: Brain, Mind, Feel, and School: Expanded Edition. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: ten.17226/9853.

×

Formats for Assessing Understanding

Teachers accept express time to assess students' performances and provide feedback, but new advances in technology can assistance solve this problem (meet Chapter 9). Fifty-fifty without engineering science, however, advances have been made in devising simple assessments that measure understanding rather than memorization. In the area of physics, assessments like those used in Chapter two to compare experts and novices take been revised for use in classrooms. One task presents students with 2 problems and asks them to land whether both would exist solved using a similar approach and state the reason for the conclusion:

1. A two.5-kilogram brawl with a radius of four centimeters is traveling at seven meters/second on a rough horizontal surface, but not spinning. At some later on time, the brawl is rolling without slipping v meters/2nd. How much piece of work was done past friction?

2. A 0.5-kilogram ball with a radius of 15 centimeters is initially sliding at 10 meters/second without spinning. The ball travels on a horizontal surface and eventually rolls without slipping. Find the brawl's final velocity.

Novices typically state that these two problems are solved similarly considering they friction match on surface features—both involve a ball sliding and rolling on a horizontal surface. Students who are learning with understanding state that the bug are solved differently: the first can be solved by applying the work-free energy theorem; the second can exist solved by applying conservation of angular momentum (Hardiman et al., 1989); see Box 6.2. These kinds of assessment items can be used during the course of instruction to monitor the depth of conceptual understanding.

Portfolio assessments are another method of formative assessment. They provide a format for keeping records of students' work equally they progress throughout the year and, virtually importantly, for allowing students to discuss their achievements and difficulties with their teachers, parents, and swain students (e.m., Wiske, 1997; Wolf, 1988). They take time to implement and they are often implemented poorly—portfolios frequently get merely another place to store student work but no discussion of the work takes place— but used properly, they provide students and others with valuable data nearly their learning progress over time.

Theoretical Frameworks for Assessment

A claiming for the learning sciences is to provide a theoretical framework that links cess practices to learning theory. An important footstep in this management is represented past the work of Baxter and Glaser (1997), who

Suggested Citation:"vi The Design of Learning Environments." National Research Quango. 2000. How People Larn: Brain, Listen, Experience, and School: Expanded Edition. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9853.

×

BOX vi.two How Practice You lot Know?

A 1-kilogram stick that is 2 meters long is placed on a frictionless surface and is free to rotate about a vertical pivot through one stop. A 50-gram lump of putty is attached lxxx centimeters from the pivot. Which of the following principles would allow y'all to determine the magnitude of the net force between the stick and the putty when the angular velocity of the organisation is 3 radians/second?

1. Newton's 2d constabulary,

2. Angular momentum or conservation of angular momentum

3. Linear momentum or conservation of linear momentum

4. Work-free energy theorem or conservation of mechanical free energy

5. Conservation of linear momentum followed past conservation of mechanical free energy

Performance on this item was virtually random for students finishing an introductory calculus-based physics class. The temptation is to match the "rotation" surface feature of the trouble with "angular momentum," when in fact the problem is solved past a elementary application of Newton's 2d law. Data such equally these are important for helping teachers guide students toward the development of fluid, transferable noesis (Leonard et al., 1996).

provide a framework for integrating cognition and context in assessing accomplishment in scientific discipline. In their study, performance is described in terms of the content and process chore demands of the subject area thing and the nature and extent of cognitive activity likely to be observed in a particular assessment situation. The framework provides a footing for examining how developers' intentions are realized in functioning assessments that purport to mensurate reasoning, understanding, and complex problem solving.

Characterizing assessments in terms of components of competence and the content-procedure demands of the bailiwick matter brings specificity to generic assessment objectives such every bit "higher level thinking and deep understanding." Characterizing student performance in terms of cognitive activities focuses attention on the differences in competence and subject-matter achievement that can exist observed in learning and cess situations. The kind and quality of cognitive activities in an cess is a role of the content and process demands of the task involved. For instance, consider the content-process framework for science assessment shown in Figure six.2 (Baxter and Glaser, 1997). In this figure, chore demands for content

Suggested Citation:"6 The Design of Learning Environments." National Enquiry Council. 2000. How People Learn: Encephalon, Mind, Experience, and Schoolhouse: Expanded Edition. Washington, DC: The National Academies Printing. doi: 10.17226/9853.

×

Effigy 6.2 Content-process space of science assessments.

knowledge are conceptualized on a continuum from rich to lean (y axis). At one extreme are cognition-rich tasks, tasks that require in-depth agreement of subject affair for their completion. At the other extreme are tasks that are not dependent on prior knowledge or related experiences; rather, operation is primarily dependent on the data given in the assessment situation. The task demands for process skills are conceptualized as a continuum from constrained to open (x axis). In open situations, explicit directions are minimized; students are expected to generate and deport out advisable process skills for problem solution. In procedure-constrained situations, directions can be of two types: step-by-stride, subject-specific procedures given as office of the task, or directions to explicate the process skills that are necessary for task completion. In this situation, students are asked to generate explanations, an activity that does not require using the process skills. Assessment tasks can involve many possible combinations of content cognition and process skills; Table 6.i illustrates the relationship between the structure of knowledge and the organized cognitive activities.

Community-CENTERED ENVIRONMENTS

New developments in the science of learning suggest that the caste to which environments are community centered is also of import for learning. Specially of import are norms for people learning from one another and continually attempting to amend. We use the term community centered to refer to several aspects of community, including the classroom every bit a commu-

Suggested Citation:"6 The Pattern of Learning Environments." National Enquiry Council. 2000. How People Learn: Encephalon, Mind, Feel, and School: Expanded Edition. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9853.

×

TABLE half-dozen.1 Cognitive Activeness and Structure of Knowledge

	Construction of Knowledge
Organized Cognitive Activity	Fragmented	Meaningful
Problem Representation	Surface features and shallow understanding	Underlying principles and relevant concepts
Strategy Use	Undirected trial-and-error problem solving	Efficient, informative, and goal oriented
Self-Monitoring	Minimal and desultory	Ongoing and flexible
Explanation	Unmarried statement of fact of clarification of superficial factors	Principled and coherent

nity, the school every bit a customs, and the degree to which students, teachers, and administers feel continued to the larger customs of homes, businesses, states, the nation, and even the world.

Classroom and School Communities

At the level of classrooms and schools, learning seems to be enhanced by social norms that value the search for understanding and allow students (and teachers) the freedom to make mistakes in society to acquire (east.thousand., Brown and Campione, 1994; Cobb et al., 1992). Different classrooms and schools reflect dissimilar sets of norms and expectations. For example, an unwritten norm that operates in some classrooms is never to get caught making a fault or not knowing an respond (see, east.g., Holt, 1964). This norm can hinder students' willingness to ask questions when they do not sympathize the fabric or to explore new questions and hypotheses. Some norms and expectations are more than subject specific. For example, the norms in a mathematics form may be that mathematics is knowing how to compute answers; a much better norm would exist that the goal of inquiry is mathematical understanding. Unlike norms and practices accept major furnishings on what is taught and how it is assessed (east.1000., Cobb et al., 1992). Sometimes there are different sets of expectations for dissimilar students. Teachers may convey expectations for school success to some students and expectations for school failure to others (MacCorquodale, 1988). For example, girls are sometimes discouraged from participating in college level mathematics and scientific discipline. Students, likewise, may share and convey cultural expectations that proscribe the participation of girls in some classes (Schofield et al., 1990).

Suggested Citation:"vi The Design of Learning Environments." National Inquiry Council. 2000. How People Acquire: Brain, Heed, Feel, and School: Expanded Edition. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9853.

×

BOX 6.3 Talking in Course

A speech-language pathologist working in an Inuit school (in northern Canada) asked a primary—who was not an Inuit—to compile a list of children who had speech and language problems in the school. The list contained a 3rd of the students in the schoolhouse, and adjacent to several names the principal wrote, "Does not talk in class." The speech-linguistic communication pathologist consulted a local Inuit teacher for help determining how each child functioned in his or her native language. She looked at the names and said, "Well raised Inuit children should not talk in course. They should exist learning by looking

When the speech communication-language pathologist asked that teacher about 1 toddler she was studying who was very talkative and seemed to the non-Inuit researcher to be very brilliant, the teacher said: "Do yous think he might take a learning problem? Some of these children who don't have such high intelligence take trouble stopping themselves. They don't know when to stop talking" (Crago, 1988:219).

Classroom norms can also encourage modes of participation that may exist unfamiliar to some students. For example, some groups rely on learning by observation and listening and then becoming involved in ongoing activities; school-like forms of talking may be unfamiliar for the children whose community has only recently included schools (Rogoff et al., 1993); see Box 6.3.

The sense of customs in classrooms is likewise affected by grading practices, and these can take positive or negative furnishings depending on the students. For example, Navajo high school students do not treat tests and grades as competitive events the way that Anglo students do (Deyhle and Margonis, 1995). An Anglo high schoolhouse advisor reported that Navajo parents complained about their children being singled out when the counselor started a "high achiever" bulletin lath and wanted to put up the pictures of students with B averages or better. The advisor "compromised" past putting upwardly happy stickers with the students' names on them. A Navajo student, staring at the board, said "The board embarrasses u.s., to be stuck out similar that" (Deyhle and Margonis, 1995:28).

More broadly, contest among students for teacher attention, approval, and grades is a commonly used motivator in U.S. schools. And in some situations, competition may create situations that impede learning. This is especially so if individual competition is at odds with a community ethic of individuals' contributing their strengths to the customs (Suina and Smolkin, 1994).

Suggested Citation:"6 The Design of Learning Environments." National Research Council. 2000. How People Learn: Brain, Listen, Experience, and Schoolhouse: Expanded Edition. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9853.

×

An accent on community is also imortant when attempting to infringe successful educational practices from other countries. For example, Japanese teachers spend considerable fourth dimension working with the whole grade, and they frequently inquire students who have made errors to share their thinking with the rest of the class. This can exist very valuable considering it leads to discussions that deepen the understanding of everyone in the form. However, this practice works only because Japanese teachers have developed a classroom civilization in which students are skilled at learning from ane another and respect the fact that an analysis of errors is fruitful for learning (Hatano and Inagaki, 1996). Japanese students value listening, and so they acquire from big class discussions even if they do not have many chances to participate. The culture of American classrooms is often very different—many emphasize the importance of being correct and contributing by talking. Teaching and learning must be viewed from the perspective of the overall culture of the order and its relationship to the norms of the classrooms. To simply attempt to import 1 or ii Japanese education techniques into American classrooms may not produce the desired results.

The sense of community in a schoolhouse as well appears to be strongly affected by the adults who work in that environment. As Barth (1988) states:

Studies by Bray (1998) and Talbert and McLaughlin (1993) emphasize the importance of instructor learning communities. We say more near this in Affiliate 8.

Connections to the Broader Customs

An assay of learning environments from the perspective of community also includes a concern for connections between the schoolhouse surround and the broader community, including homes, community centers, afterwards-school programs, and businesses. Capacity iii, 4, and 5 showed that learning takes time; ideally, what is learned in school tin can be connected to out-of-school learning and vice versa. Often, nonetheless, this ideal is not reached. As John Dewey (1916) noted long ago:

The importance of connecting the school with outside learning activities can exist appreciated by considering Effigy 6.iii, which shows the percentage of time during a typical schoolhouse year that students spend in schoolhouse, sleeping,

Suggested Citation:"6 The Pattern of Learning Environments." National Research Council. 2000. How People Acquire: Encephalon, Mind, Feel, and School: Expanded Edition. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: x.17226/9853.

×

and engaged in other activities (meet Bransford et al., 2000). The percentage of time spent in school is insufficiently small. If students spend one-tertiary of their nonsleeping time exterior of school watching television receiver, this means that they spend more time watching television in a year than they spend in schoolhouse. (We say more virtually television and learning in the next section.)

A fundamental environment for learning is the family. Even when family unit members do not focus consciously on instructional roles, they provide resources for children's learning, activities in which learning occurs, and connections to community (Moll, 1986a, b, 1990). Children likewise acquire from the attitudes of family members toward skills and values of schooling.

The success of the family every bit a learning environment, especially in children'southward early years (see Affiliate 4), has provided inspiration and guidance for some of the changes recommended in schools. The phenomenal development of children from birth to historic period four or v is generally supported past family interactions in which children learn by engaging with and observing others in shared endeavors. Conversations and other interactions that occur effectually events of interest with trusted and skilled adult and kid companions are especially powerful environments for children'south learning. Many of the recommendations for changes in schools can be seen as extensions of the learning activities that occur within families. In addition, recommendations

FIGURES vi.three Comparison of time spent in school, home and customs, and slumber. Percentages were calculated using 180 school days each year, and each school day was estimated to be half-dozen.v hours in length.

Suggested Citation:"half dozen The Blueprint of Learning Environments." National Research Council. 2000. How People Learn: Brain, Heed, Experience, and School: Expanded Edition. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9853.

×

to include families in classroom activities and planning hold promise of bringing together two powerful systems for supporting children's learning.

Children participate in many other institutions outside their homes that can foster learning. Some of these institutions have learning every bit function of their goals, including many after-school programs, organizations such every bit Boy and Girl Scouts and 4-H Clubs, museums, and religious groups. Others brand learning more incidental, merely learning takes place nevertheless (see McLaughlin, 1990, on youth clubs; Griffin and Cole, 1984, on the Fifth Dimension Programme).

Connections to experts outside of school can also have a positive influence on in-school learning because they provide opportunities for students to collaborate with parents and other people who take an interest in what students are doing. It can exist very motivating both to students and teachers to have opportunities to share their work with others. Opportunities to prepare for these events helps teachers raise standards because the consequences go beyond mere scores on a exam (e.thou., Brown and Campione, 1994, 1996; Knowledge and Technology Group at Vanderbilt, in press b).

The idea of outside audiences who present challenges (complete with deadlines) has been incorporated into a number of instructional programs (e.g., Cognition and Technology Grouping at Vanderbilt, 1997; Wiske, 1997). Working to gear up for outsiders provides motivation that helps teachers maintain student interest. In add-on, teachers and students develop a better sense of community as they prepare to face a common challenge. Students are too motivated to ready for outside audiences who exercise not come up to the classroom just will see their projects. Preparing exhibits for museums represents an excellent instance (see Collins et al., 1991). New technologies that enhance the ability to connect classrooms to others in the school, to parents, business leaders, college students, content expanse experts, and others around the world are discussed in Affiliate 9.

TELEVISION

For better or for worse, almost children spent a considerable amount of time watching television; it has played an increasingly prominent office in children'southward development over the past l years. Children lookout a great deal of tv before inbound school, and television set viewing continues throughout life. In fact, many students spend more hours watching television than attention school. Parents want their children to acquire from television; at the same time they are concerned most what they are learning from the programs they watch (Greenfield, 1984).

Suggested Citation:"6 The Design of Learning Environments." National Inquiry Council. 2000. How People Acquire: Brain, Mind, Experience, and Schoolhouse: Expanded Edition. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9853.

×

Watching Different Kinds of Programs

Television programming for children ranges from educational to purely entertaining (encounter Wright and Huston, 1995). And at that place are unlike means of watching programs—a child may scout in isolation or with an adult. Furthermore, just as in domains like chess, physics, or education (see Chapter two), people's existing knowledge and beliefs affect what they find, understand, and remember from viewing tv (Newcomb and Collins, 1979). The same program can have different furnishings depending on who is watching and whether the viewing is a solo action or part of an interactive group. An of import stardom is whether the plan is intended to be educational or non.

One group of preschoolers aged 2–iv and first-grade students aged half-dozen–7 watched about 7–8 hours of noneducational programming per week; the preschool children also watched an average of 2 hours of educational programming per week, and the older students watched 1 hr. Despite the low ratio of educational to noneducational viewing, the educational programs seemed to have positive benefits. The 2- to 4-twelvemonth-old preschoolers performed amend than non-viewers of educational programs on tests of school readiness, reading, mathematics, and vocabulary as much as 3 years later (Wright and Huston, 1995). Specifically, viewing educational programs was a positive predictor of letter-word knowledge, vocabulary size, and school readiness on standardized accomplishment tests. For the older students, the viewing of educational programs was related to improve performance on tests of reading comprehension and teachers' judgments of school aligning in first and 2nd grades, compared with children who were infrequent viewers. Overall, the effects of television viewing were not as widespread for the older students, and there were fewer meaning furnishings for the older children than for the preschoolers. It is important to notation that the effects of watching educational programs were evident "even when initial language skills, family pedagogy, income, and the quality of the home environment are taken into business relationship" (Wright and Huston, 1995:22).

Effects on Beliefs and Attitudes

Television also provides images and role models that can affect how children view themselves, how they see others, attitudes about what academic subjects they should exist interested in, and other topics related to person perception. These images can have both positive and negative effects. For example, when eight- to 14-yr-olds watched programs designed to evidence positive attributes of children around the world, they were less likely to say that children from their ain country were more interesting or more intelligent (O'Brien, 1981), and they began to encounter more similarities among

Suggested Citation:"6 The Pattern of Learning Environments." National Research Council. 2000. How People Learn: Encephalon, Mind, Experience, and School: Expanded Edition. Washington, DC: The National Academies Printing. doi: x.17226/9853.

×

people around the earth (Greenfield, 1984). And children who watched episodes of Sesame Street featuring handicapped children had more positive feelings toward children with disabilities.

All the same, children tin also misinterpret programs most people from dissimilar cultures, depending on what they already know (Newcomb and Collins, 1979). Stereotyping represents a powerful effect of watching television receiver that is potentially negative. Children bring sexual activity role stereotypes with them to schoolhouse that derive from television programs and commercials (Dorr, 1982).

As a powerful visual medium, television creates stereotypes even when there is no intent to sell an image. Simply experimental studies signal that such stereotyping effects decrease with children equally young every bit 5 if adults offer critiques of the stereotypic portrayals every bit the children spotter programs (Dorr, 1982). Thus, entertainment programs tin can educate in positive ways and learned data can be extended through adult guidance and commentary.

In sum, tv set has an impact on children's learning that must be taken seriously. But the medium is neither inherently benign nor harmful. The content that students watch, and how they watch information technology, has important effects on what they acquire. Especially significant is the fact that informative or educational programming has been shown to have beneficial effects on school achievement and that a preponderance of non-educational, entertainment viewing tin have negative furnishings. Furthermore, the benefits of informative viewing occur despite the fact that the ratio of immature children's viewing tends to be seven:1 in favor of amusement idiot box. These findings support the wisdom of continued attempts to develop and study television set programs that can help students acquire the kinds of knowledge, skills, and attitudes that support their learning in school.

THE IMPORTANCE OF ALIGNMENT

In the beginning of this chapter we noted that the four perspectives on learning environments (the degree to which they are learner, knowledge, assessment, and customs centered) would be discussed separately but ultimately needed to be aligned in ways that mutually support one another. Alignment is equally important for schools as for organizations in full general (e.grand., Covey, 1990). A central aspect of task analysis (see Affiliate two) is the idea of aligning goals for learning with what is taught, how it is taught, and how it is assessed (both formatively and summatively). Without this alignment, information technology is hard to know what is being learned. Students may be learning valuable data, simply one cannot tell unless there is alignment between what they are learning and the assessment of that learning. Similarly, students may be learning things that others don't value unless curricula and assess-

Suggested Citation:"6 The Pattern of Learning Environments." National Research Council. 2000. How People Acquire: Brain, Mind, Experience, and Schoolhouse: Expanded Edition. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9853.

×

ments are aligned with the broad learning goals of communities (Lehrer and Shumow, 1997).

A systems arroyo to promote coordination among activities is needed to design effective learning environments (Brown and Campione, 1996). Many schools have checklists of innovative practices, such as the apply of collaborative learning, teaching for understanding and problem solving, and using formative cess. Often, however, these activities are not coordinated with 1 another. Educational activity for understanding and problem solving may be "what we do on Fridays"; collaborative learning may be used to promote memorization of fact-based tests; and formative assessments may focus on skills that are totally disconnected from the residual of the students' curriculum. In addition, students may be given opportunities to study collaboratively for tests still be graded on a curve and so that they compete with one another rather than trying to meet particular performance standards. In these situations, activities in the classroom are not aligned.

Activities within a item classroom may be aligned nonetheless fail to fit with the remainder of the school. And a school as a whole needs to have a consistent alignment. Some schools communicate a consequent policy near norms and expectations for behave and accomplishment. Others transport mixed messages. For example, teachers may transport behavior issues to the main, who may inadvertently undermine the teacher by making light of the students' behavior. Similarly, schedules may or may not exist made flexible in lodge to accommodate in-depth research, and schools may or may not be adjusted to minimize disruptions, including nonacademic "pullout" programs and fifty-fifty the number of classroom interruptions made past a chief's overzealous employ of the classroom intercom. Overall, different activities within a school may or may not compete with one another and impede overall progress. When principals and teachers piece of work together to define a common vision for their entire schoolhouse, learning can ameliorate (e.g., Barth, 1988, 1991; Peterson et al., 1995).

Activities within schools must also be aligned with the goals and assessment practices of the community. Ideally, teachers' goals for learning fit with the curriculum they teach and the school'due south goals, which in turn fit the goals implicit in the tests of accountability used by the school arrangement. Oftentimes these factors are out of alignment. Constructive change requires a simultaneous consideration of all these factors (e.g., Bransford et al., 1998). The new scientific findings about learning provide a framework for guiding systemic change.

CONCLUSION

The goals and expectations for schooling accept changed quite dramatically during the past century, and new goals advise the need to rethink

Suggested Citation:"6 The Design of Learning Environments." National Research Council. 2000. How People Acquire: Encephalon, Mind, Experience, and Schoolhouse: Expanded Edition. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: ten.17226/9853.

×

such questions as what is taught, how information technology is taught, and how students are assessed. We emphasized that research on learning does not provide a recipe for designing effective learning environments, only it does support the value of asking certain kinds of questions about the design of learning environments.

Four perspectives on the design of learning environments—the degree to which they are student centered, knowledge centered, assessment centered, and community centered—are important in designing these environments.

A focus on the degree to which environments are learner centered is consistent with the strong body of evidence suggesting that learners' utilize their current noesis to construct new knowledge and that what they know and believe at the moment affects how they translate new data. Sometimes learners' current cognition supports new learning, sometimes it hampers learning: effective pedagogy begins with what learners bring to the setting; this includes cultural practices and behavior as well as knowledge of academic content.

Learner-centered environments attempt to help students make connections between their previous knowledge and their current academic tasks. Parents are especially good at helping their children make connections. Teachers have a harder fourth dimension because they practise not share the life experiences of each of their students. Nevertheless, at that place are ways to systematically become familiar with each student's special interests and strengths.

Effective environments must besides be knowledge centered. Information technology is not sufficient only to attempt to teach general problem solving and thinking skills; the ability to think and solve problems requires well-organized knowledge that is accessible in appropriate contexts. An emphasis on existence knowledge centered raises a number of questions, such as the caste to which education begins with students' current noesis and skills, rather than simply presents new facts about the subject matter. While young students are capable of grasping more complex concepts than was believed previously, those concepts must exist presented in ways that are developmentally appropriate. A knowledge-centered perspective on learning environments also highlights the importance of thinking about designs for curricula. To what extent do they help students larn with understanding versus promote the conquering of disconnected sets of facts and skills? Curricula that emphasize an excessively wide range of subjects run the risk of developing disconnected rather than continued knowledge; they fit well with the idea of a curriculum equally being a well-worn path in a route. An alternative metaphor for curriculum is to help students develop interconnected pathways within a discipline so that they "learn their abroad around in it" and non lose sight of where they are.

Suggested Citation:"vi The Design of Learning Environments." National Enquiry Council. 2000. How People Larn: Encephalon, Mind, Experience, and School: Expanded Edition. Washington, DC: The National Academies Printing. doi: 10.17226/9853.

×

Issues of assessment also stand for an important perspective for viewing the design of learning environments. Feedback is fundamental to learning, just opportunities to receive it are oftentimes scarce in classrooms. Students may receive grades on tests and essays, just these are summative assessments that occur at the end of projects; also needed are formative assessments that provide students opportunities to revise and hence improve the quality of their thinking and learning. Assessments must reflect the learning goals that define various environments. If the goal is to enhance understanding, it is not sufficient to provide assessments that focus primarily on memory for facts and formulas. Many instructors have changed their approach to didactics after seeing how their students failed to sympathize seemingly obvious (to the expert) ideas.

The fourth perspective on learning environments involves the degree to which they promote a sense of community. Ideally, students, teachers, and other interested participants share norms that value learning and high standards. Norms such every bit these increase people'south opportunities to collaborate, receive feedback, and learn. There are several aspects of community, including the community of the classroom, the schoolhouse, and the connections between the schoolhouse and the larger community, including the home. The importance of connected communities becomes articulate when ane examines the relatively minor amount of time spent in school compared to other settings. Activities in homes, customs centers, and after-school clubs can have important furnishings on students' academic accomplishment.

Finally, at that place needs to be alignment among the iv perspectives of learning environments. They all take the potential to overlap and mutually influence one another. Issues of alignment appear to be very important for accelerating learning both inside and outside of schools.

Understanding, Assessing, and Teaching Reading: a Diagnostic Approach Ebook

Source: https://www.nap.edu/read/9853/chapter/10

Share :